


Silver Lights, Darker Times

by steelneena



Series: Widomauk Week 2k19: With A Twist [4]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meeting, M/M, Pre Relationship, Psychics, Visions, Widomauk Week, Widomauk Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-04-11 23:38:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19120060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: Prompt: Day 4, Free Day





	Silver Lights, Darker Times

**Author's Note:**

> The weirdest one yet. Not sure if I'll have one for tomorrow or not. 
> 
> The musical inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcMz3aAZDv4

Caleb doesn’t know what he’s doing. Or why. It’s  _ dumb _ . It’s so,  _ so _ fucking dumb. The rain, driving down in a torrent, has soaked him to the bone, even through his leather jacket. The sounds of the city surround him where he stands in the dark alleyway; filtering through the occasional thunder, car horns blare, tires screech, an engine revs. A gunshot makes him jump, and an alarm is going off now, and there’s music from within the building that he can just barely hear, drifting out from the busted, boarded up windows above. It’s ominous to say the least. He looks down at the slip of paper in his hand, torn from the newspaper that morning on impulse, the ink half run off, blotted from the rain.

_ The NONAGON _

_ Want to know your future? _

_ Club Xhorhaas _

_ 35th and Mercer Blvrd. _

_ CASH ONLY _

He looks up and sees the flickering, purple-blue lights of the sign that proclaim this trashed, sketchy looking building to be, indeed, Club Xhorhas.

Taking a deep breath, Caleb pushes his sopping, copper hair out of his eyes, tosses the newspaper into a decaying cardboard box to the side and shoulders his way through the door. The minute it shuts behind him, all other sound save the music is drowned out. A bouncer, a big, burly bald man, with his arms crossed over his shirtless chest glances down at him briefly before jerking his head towards the interior. Caleb only hesitates for a moment before taking the stairs up to where the main area opens.

The place used to be a factory. Even in the dark, Caleb can recognize that. And it is _ dark _ . The only lights are neon and coloured. The music is discordant and grating and almost trancelike. A few people are on the dancefloor, moving like they’ve had one pill too many, even though he thinks it’s just the music. It’s not empty by any means, but nor is it full. No one spares a look at him. Not even the bartender.

He sits on one of the stools, rapping the sticky wood of the bar, but the man at the other end - his hair, an incredibly white undercut and his skin, in this light, it’s hard to tell, but Caleb’s almost sure it’s greyish purple, and his ears, pointed: Drow - doesn’t hear him. In fact, Caleb can’t hear himself knock, for that matter.

Nervous, he drums his fingers on the sloped edge of the bar, feeling the press of his finger pads into its unrelenting surface, over and over again. The room smells overwhelmingly of old must and damp, sweet sweat and spilled alcohol. He swivels in the seat, looking around at the blacklight graffiti that covers the walls and the insides of the windows, much of it in a language he doesn’t know, and gang symbols he doesn’t recognize.

Something shifts and moves, and Caleb looks up. The drow bartender has turned bright turquoise eyes on him.

“What do you want?” he asks, and Caleb’s amazed to realize that he can hear him over the impossibly loud drone of the music.

“Nonagon!” Caleb says, loud as he is able and the drow inclines his head back towards where he is only just now noticing an open set of stairs. He looks up and sees the balcony like structure that must be the second floor. Just peeking over the railing, Caleb can see the eerie glow of a neon sign. Unlike the rest of the lights in the place, this one is red. Bright, blood red, in the shape of an eye.

“He’s upstairs. Cash only.” The drow says.

Caleb only nods, already sliding off of the stool, but presses a twenty across the table to the bartender anyways. “Gin, tonic.”

The drink is pressed into his hand shortly. He sips it, watching the slow flicker of the red eye, listening to the drone of the music, losing himself to it. Anything is better than wondering what the fuck it is that he’s doing here. His future is bound to be shit anyways.

He finishes the drink and leaves the tumbler behind on the counter before making his way around the central bar to the stairwell. It’s twice as wide as he anticipated, able to fit at least three of the brawny bouncer crosswise, were he to be set of triplets who wanted to go up the stairs at the same time. As he ascends, Caleb looks out to see the various people from above. There’s a lot of drow, he notices, but some others as well. A few tieflings, a tabaxi, two goliaths…

Club Xhorhaas attracts all kinds, it seems, but he doesn’t notice any other humans. Self-consciously, he messes with his dripping hair again, hiding his ears.

The steps are shallow and many, but he makes it up the steps without meeting another person at all. There’s another bouncer at the top, a pale, pale woman, whose eyes are heterochromatic, blue and vibrant purple. She stops him from stepping up to the landing, holding out an expectant hand.

“Readings are 75 apiece. Palms are 20. Anything special is another 50 additional. Pay up front.” Her voice is so soft, Caleb can hardly make it out, but he pulls the bills from the wad in his jacket, and hands her three bills. She raises an eyebrow in what he thinks may have been amusement, but it’s difficult to tell, considering her lips don’t leave their straight, thin line. All the same, she steps to the side and he can finally see, as he makes the last step, the circular table set up at the far end up the balcony. Behind it is a dark, almost iridescent tapestry of rippling colours on black, like an oil slick.

Someone sits at the table. The Nonagon, most likely.

Nothing else at all fills the balcony, save a long, black carpet, rolled out the length of it. As he walks towards the table, he can see the whole rest of the club laid out below him to either side. The music is strangely hollow up here, and, for the first time since he entered the hollowed out old factory, Caleb can  _ almost _ hear himself think.

He looks away from the overhang and back towards his goal. A figure is slowly starting to take shape there, at the end, seated on a great black leather sofa. The Nonagon is a tiefling, with purple skin, and beautiful, grey curling rams horns, around which a tangle of silken curls falls. His horns and ears are pierced, the metal glimmering alluringly. He’s sitting towards the middle of the couch, one knee up, the other leg extended, resting casually up on the table, revealing a thigh high leather boot. He’s about the brightest thing in the room. His jeans are maroon, and a white button up, tucked into his waistband,  is mostly buttoned down, exposing the myriad of twisting tattoos across his torso. When he opens his eyes to stare unnervingly at Caleb, he sees that they’re red and suddenly, the eye sign, which sends its glow down upon them from where it’s mounted directly above the Nonagon’s head, make sense.

“Special request.” The Nonagon says to him. It’s not a question “What’d you have in mind, gorgeous?”

“I need to know many things.”

The Nonagon chuckles.

“Take a seat, Red,” he purrs, “and we’ll talk.”

Reluctantly - and it’s ridiculous, because it’s not like anyone  _ forced _ him to come here - Caleb pulls out the hard, wooden chair. It’s painted black and it’s just as sticky from humidity as the bar was from spilled drinks. He settles himself in and waits, hands on his thighs, anxiously gripping the fabric of his jeans.

A deck of cards appears in the Nonagon’s hand as if from nothing, but Caleb knows sleight of hand when he sees it.

“What’s your poison?” The Nonagon asks. Now that Caleb’s not so overwhelmed, he takes a long moment to gaze at his face, all sharp angles, defined cheekbones and striking jawline. One of the tattoos even snakes its way up his neck, ended on his cheek. A peacock feather. The effect is... _ compelling. _ is…c _ ompelling _ .

“Gin-tonic.” Caleb answers, absently, gaze still lingering on the fine line of the Nonagon’s long, slender neck. “I finished it below.”

The Nonagon tosses his lovely head. Lovely, but, Caleb suspects, deadly. He can feel the presence of the woman behind them, watching. Waiting.

“Ha!” He laughs. “Cards, loverboy, I mean, cards. Or the palm, or crystals, or runes?”

“Cards.”

It’s the only answer Caleb knows to give.

Suddenly, the Nonagon moves, his propped leg swinging off the table. He tucks them under himself and leans back, throwing his arms over the cushion behind him.

“You paid everything you have for this, didn’t you?” he asks, cocking his head.

Caleb swallows. The weight of the Nonagon’s gaze is disorienting. Every time he moves, Caleb can hear the slight jingle of his jewelry. Somehow, it’s easy to hear him. Must be the positioning.

“I...ja. I need…I need answers. I’m…”

“A desperate man.” The Nonagon answers for him. “I don’t need to read the future to see that. Is that why you jumped outside when the gun went off?” The Nonagon asks.

Caleb does a double take, shocked. The windows at the top of the building are far, far away from the Nonagon’s current position, not that that means much of anything. His mind is racing through the numerous possibilities. It could have been staged, he could have guessed, but  _ how? _ How could…“How did you…”

The Nonagon’s piercing gaze rakes him over, and when he’s done, the fortune teller smiles. “That’s why you paid what you did to see me. Now, gorgeous, let’s get down to it.”

He resituated himself again, booted feet now planted on the floor, arms elegantly holding the cards in his hand, fanning them and bridging them before combining them together and spreading them out in an arch over the silk cloth that decks the table.

“Ask a question.”

Caleb hesitates. “I...ah...there is...Is he-“ He settles on the query. “Is he close? To me? To finding me?”

The Nonagon watches him carefully, and Caleb imagines, categorizes the tells, knows that he is being read, movement for movement, tremble for tremble, stutter for stutter.

But he  _ needs _ it.

He needs it.

Abruptly, but with a languid grace, the Nonagon reaches across the table and takes Caleb’s hand, pulling it to him and absently rubbing circles over his palm, the sensation leaving tingles in its wake. The drone of the music starts to buzz in the back of Caleb’s head, an undercurrent of electricity. The touch of their hands sparks something that Caleb cannot seek to divine. It leaves his spine prickling and his arm hair on end.

Or maybe it’s just the chill from the rain soaked into his damp clothes.

“You pick,” the Nonagon says after a moment, his voice slow and smoky. “I’ll read.”

“How will I know?” Caleb asks.

The Nonagon smiles crookedly. “You’ll know.” He lifts Caleb’s hand, and then leaves it to hover over the spread deck.

Instinctively, Caleb moves his hand over the cards, slow and deliberate. When his hand starts to tingle – and it’s definitely psychosomatic and nothing more – he pauses and looks up at the Nonagon, who arches a fine, dark brow.

“This one,” he says, almost without meaning to.

The Nonagon slides it out from the deck and into its place, and then waits for Caleb to continue. It goes on like that for some time until the tingling subsides and Caleb sits back, suddenly feeling something undefinable, somewhere between exhaustion and exhilaration. It’s intoxicating, and his head is spinning, and he’s starting to wish he hadn’t slammed the gin-tonic because he’s starting to feel woozy.

Oblivious to it all, the Nonagon leans forward, collapsing the rest of the deck back into a pile in his hand and places it deliberately to the side.

“Now,” he begins to say. “Let’s see what your future holds.”

But Caleb barely hears him. The smell in the room is sickly sweet and the lights are spinning and the  _ room _ is spinning and there are eyes all around him, moving in a circle, red at first, before the world begins to desaturate and everything is grey, grey, grey light, grey faces, grey eyes, grey fire.

The music is nothing more than a loud, blaring squeal, harsh and jarring and then it’s a siren, and the windows are bursting and fire streams in, bright against the grey and it’s rushing, rushing towards him like a swelling storm and-

Caleb knows no more.

* * *

Mollymauk Tealeaf likes to think he’s plenty smart. He’s no sham, but he’s also a damned good cold reader, so when the drenched  redheadred head comes to his table, and Yasha’s behind him, waving three bills in the air, he knows that this has potential. He can tell from the nervous jitter in Red’s leg that something is sincerely wrong. Molly takes a few wild guesses. He knows the area well enough; it’s not that big of a stretch to guess that a gun had gone off outside before the man came in. He’s not well dressed, but nor would he be unkempt, if it weren’t for the fact that he looks almostbout like a drowned cat, dripping wet as he is from the spring rain outside.

All the same, Molly notes him for his subtle, understated beauty. The thick red beard that hides his lower face no doubt warms what is sure to be an absolutely tantalizing jawline, and his blue, blue eyes almost glow electric in the blacklight. And then there’s the accent. Subtle, beautiful. Zemnian. It’s exciting and a more than a little exotic for Molly’s experience.

Instantly, Molly likes Red. He’s a customer, yes, and he’s projecting so hard, Molly could see it from a mile away, but there’s something lost about Red that Molly can’t seem to put his finger on. He messes with the man a little, teases him easily, flirts a bit with his movements, and then, because he did pay well, after all, gets down to business. At first, everything is going just fine. Molly stimulates the nerve endings in Red’s hand, feeling a little tingle of his own, watching the contrast between their skintones, seeing how Red has begun to tremble a bit. When they part, Molly’s almost sorry. The touch was electric, and that’s saying something. Molly touches a lot of hands, and none of them make him feel like Red’s does. Everything goes the way it always does. The client picks the cards, Molly moves them deftly into place. That’s it. It’s not complicated, but it building the suspense and gives him extra time to take stock of the person he’s meant to read. After all, he has a reputation to uphold. He’s  _ not _ a sham. HeBut he’s not always right, but that’s in the interpretation of things. The cards don’t lie.

Red’s growing paler as time goes on, but, at first, Molly doesn’t notice it. A trick of the lights, nothing more.

The last of the cards is chosen, but Red’s watching a spot behind him, growing unfocused. It could be the music, combined with the mental correlation of calmness during a reading, so Molly decides, it’s time to break the silence between them, bring Red back from wherever it is he’s headed. He didn’t look drugged before, but anything, Molly supposes, is possible.

“Now,” he begins to say. “Let’s see what your future holds.”

In that moment, everything changes. Red sways in his chair, and for a moment, Molly loses his composure, because it looks like Red is going to topple forwards onto the table, but he doesn’t. At the last minute, the pallid man catches himself on the corner of the table, lifts his hung head and looks at Molly, dead on. His eyes…his eyes are  _ wrong;  _ they’re white, pure white, and for the first time in all the time he can remember, Molly is perturbed to his core.

“Alright, having a laugh, are we? Well, you’re the one who paid…”

Just when he thought it couldn’t get weirder, Red speaks, cutting Molly off, his voice strangely garbled, despite the softness of his accent.

_ “You have many names. You are many people. Nonagon. Tealeaf. Seer. Priest. Lordling. Phoenix. There have been many sunrises and sunsets for you. You are made up of their qualities, you are lightness and darkness, you are moon and sun, you burn the stars from your palms to the walls of the world and where your feet tread, you leave a cosmos in your wake… _

_ Living possibility…” _

Red cocks his head, the motion jerky, almost inhuman, and peers, it feels, deep into Molly’s very soul, and everything feels  _ far _ too real.

Molly’s breathing heavily now, swallowing hard, his tail flicking quick with anxiety and he can see Yasha in his peripheral vision, starting to look confused, nervous. It takes everything in him to move enough to wave her off.

Whatever Red was looking for, he must have found it, because he starts to speak again, and Molly’s attention returns, rapt.

_ “Dead. Dead twice over. Hidden scars within and without. Who you are, are you who, you are who, you who are.”  _ Red leans in closer, like he’s sharing a secret, and whispers in Molly’s ear.  _  “He is hiding just beneath. Tear off your skin and he’d be there. Always there. Waiting, waiting to come out again from his walking grave. You smell of death. A dead man lives under your skin. Waiting. Don’t let your skeleton out.” _

Properly unsettled, Molly’s just about to call Yasha over when Red makes to grab him, and that – that’s where Molly  _ always _ draws the line. He’s pulling back out of the way, before, suddenly, Red shakes his head, moans, and falls back in the chair, shivering.

Molly eyes him cautiously, waving Yasha off once more.

He can handle this.

He  _ can _ .

“Red,” he calls softly. “Hey, loverboy? You with me?”

Another moan, and then beautiful, startlingly blue eyes open once more. “Sorry, I… zoned… the reading? We were just starting?”

He doesn’t know.  _ He doesn’t know! _

Red looks at him confused, blank and expectant. Molly licks his lips, tries forcing his heart beat – which is thrumming wildly – to slow to a normal rate. Even the consideration of sitting through a reading with this man…after everything he just…after… Molly shakes his head, and he knows that he’s shaking too, though not from any chill. In fact, it’s more humid in the club than anything else.

“I…get out,” he says, voice wavering. “Get out.” He waves Yasha over, feeling frantic, ready to hyperventilate at any moment. “T-take your money back and get out.” He can’t do it, can’t stand to sit through a reading, a full, complete, bells and whistles ordeal without wondering every other moment if that…if  _ he’ll  _ come back and say more things Molly doesn’t want to hear.

The truth is always the most frightening of all, and Molly’s never liked being told the truth.  _ Happy are the fools, they know not what the world holds. _

Molly’s happy to bring the truth to others, so long as it doesn’t come to himself.

The series of expressions that crosses Red’s face in a matter of seconds would almost be comical if it weren’t for how terrified Molly feels.

“Aber-but, N-nein, I have paid!” Red cries out, distraught, and Molly is shocked to see actual tears shining in his eyes. “I need-  _ Bitte, please _ , I need this!” he begs. “I need it, oh  _ gods _ .” He covers his face with his hands, shoulders shaking.

The pleas coil around Molly’s heart uncomfortably.

“Is something wrong here?” Yasha asks as she strides up, putting one large hand on Red’s shoulder, effectively stilling him, like a mouse in a trap.

It takes a split second for Molly to make the stupidest decision of his short career. He just  _ knows  _ it. Molly manages a tight, thin smile. “I…my mistake, Yasha, dear. Red here still has a reading he’s owed.” He can hardly believe the words as they fall from his lips.  _ What are you doing??? _ But the back of his neck is tingling, and the red eye on his right pectoral itches uncomfortably. A sure sign.

_ Even fools know when to be a little wise. _

“Everything’s fine, Yasha,” he says again, slow and even, giving her a look. Warily, she turns away, mouthing at him,  _ if you’re sure. _ “Everything is just fine,” he placates again.

When she’s contended, turning away, only throwing short glances over her shoulder, Molly gives his attention back to Red.

“I’m…What… _ bitte _ .”

He’s so beautiful and plaintive, and confused, Molly almost forgets his terror, but Red’s words linger, ringing in his ears.  _ A dead man lives in your skin _ .

Cautiously, Molly fingers the red eye on his hand.

“You’re right. You paid. It would be unfair of me not to proceed just because you…zoned out.” Molly’s not sure why his gut urges caution, but it does. It does, and so he says nothing, doesn’t share this particular truth with the pitiful man before him.

Something tells him that whatever is in the cards for this man, it’s bad enough without being told he’s a seer in his own right.

Slowly, almost afraid at what he’ll see, Molly begins to flip the cards.

Red watches on, rapt and eyes wide, but he has only the most predictable reactions to the cards, nothing that indicates any further experience with them than here, and now, in this moment.

Slowly, Molly begins to speak. It’s lacking all of his usual finesse and flair, but somehow it feels more honest, true in a way that anything else wouldn’t be.

“Your questions, again, please, or was it just the one?”

Red clears his throat, resettles himself. “Ah, just the one. ‘Is he close to finding me?’”

Molly looks at the cards, spread across the table, and does his very best to find his composure, maintain his emotional distance, but he worries anyways, remembering the insane, milking white of Red’s eyes.

But he can withhold the narrative no longer.

“You’re faithful,” he begins, looking at the card. “A true soldier to your cause, whatever it may be. You’ve always felt this way, until now. Now you’re not sure. Something happened to provoke this. Two paths,” he gestures to the next card, “were once before you, but you’ve already chosen one of them, and you’re looking back now, wondering if you made the right choice. Stormy seas are behind you, but you’re too busy looking back to see what weather might be ahead. That’s a caution. Be wary of hindsight.”  He glances up, just for a moment, to read Red, to see, and sure enough, his shoulder, arm, out straight, clasped, assuredly, to his knee, is bouncing vigorously. He slides his fingers through the air, hovering still, to the third card. “You mentioned a ‘he’. A powerful influence on you. His sight extends far, but he has other, pressing concerns. You ask if he is close to finding you… he’s not looking actively at all. He is self-important. Either he trusts that when he needs to find you, he will, or he thinks you beneath him completely, not worth his time. You know him better than I do, I imagine.”

Molly pauses, looks up, notices his hand shaking over the next card, and, across the table, Red’s face is ashen.

There’s nothing else for it but to continue.

“Whatever you plan, whatever you do, you will only get so far. Your paths going forward are many, but each lies at a dead end. Fire consumes everything in its path, leaving only one exit. Your choice was made for you, long ago.”

When Molly looks up again, Red is weeping, softly, staring down at the spread with resignation in his eyes.

Molly swallows, leans back in his seat. “I know a desperate man when I see one.”  _ You smell of death _ . “Whatever you did, darling, whatever’s happened, this-“ he waves his hand over the cards, “-this is just a portent. This gives you time to think, to consider what you will do, how to adjust.” It’s kinder than he usually is with them. “They’re not writ in stone. They don’t spell your doom.” He sits back up, as Red continues to weep, bitter tears, and breaks his own rule, reaching across the table to take his hand for no other reason than to hold it. “Shall I continue?”

“I want no false hopes.”

The words are soft, barely more than a whisper, but Molly is used to listening over the music, used to reading lips if need be, and he knows exactly what’s been said.

“I’ll give you none. In fact, you paid so handsomely, I’ll do you one better.”

At that, Red’s desolate look flickers and he looks up, locking gazes with Molly for the first time since the reading started. “What will you do?”

“Let me finish the reading, and I’ll tell you.”

Brusquely, Red pulls away. “Nein. Nein,  _ fuck _ , I am stupid. This is  _ stupid. _ Was für ein Unsinn, ich sollte dass nicht gemacht, verdammten!”

“Wait!” Molly reaches out, grabbing his arm and pulling him back to his seat. “Just, wait. Just sit, breathe, calm down. You’re not in any condition to be going anywhere. We don’t…we don’t have to do the rest of the reading. I can do something else, a palm reading, or the crystals, or the runes. Ask another question, anything-“

“And what? Have you give me bullshit to make me complacent, so I do not cause a scene?”

Cruelly, no longer interested in making Red feel better, Molly laughs, pulling back to cross his arms over his chest. “Too late for that. You’re lucky I let you stay at all after what you did.”

“What I-?” Frustrated confusion comes over his features. “ _ I _ have done  _ nothing _ , what are you  _ talking abou-“ _

“Nothing! Nothing?” Molly scoffs. “Your eyes rolled back into your head and you told me that if I tore off my skin, I’d find a dead man under it, waiting to get out! You’re fucked up! And I don’t say that lightly. And I pitied you. Man doesn’t even know he’s a fucking seer, you’re sopping wet like you’ve been half drowned, and I decided to help you anyways! Well fuck that.” Molly stands; his heart is racing again, and his mind whirring, whirling, a million miles an hour.  _ Hidden scars within and without. _

Red looks stricken; he’s gone very still, looking at Molly like he’s grown another head altogether. “ _ Was _ ? What, I mean, I…I do not understand.” 

Molly just shakes his head, his anger seeping away again.  _ What a fucking roller coaster.  _ “Sit. I’m not going to yell, I’m just...you shook me up, okay? I’m a little freaked, and you’re obviously...emotional.”  _ Understatement _ . “Just, take a breath. I’m going to... put the cards away?” He looks to Red, waiting for an okay. 

He gets it automatically. 

“Alright,” Molly says, picking them up and putting them back in order. He’ll fix the rest later. Then, he waves Yasha back over. “Yasha, give him his money back. All of it. And then, you,” he points to Red, “can follow me. Yash, make sure we’re not disturbed.”

For a moment, Molly thinks that Red is going to bolt, but, ever so slowly, he nods and Molly leads him to the private room. 

The moment the door is pulled shut behind him, the sounds of the club fade away, the music once more grows muted. 

“Have a seat,” Molly says, gesturing to the much, much nicer couch. He stuck out his hand. “I’m Mollymauk Tealeaf. Molly to my friends.”

Red swallows, looks at the hand for half a second before reaching out for it, shaking it. “Caleb. Widogast.” 

“Well, that’s a false name if I ever heard one, but I don’t particularly care. Nice to meet you, Caleb.” 

“I’m...not sure I can say the same.”

Molly’s smile is wan. “No, I don’t suppose you would. Follow me.” 

Gods, is he glad they keep a camera. 

He gets up, motioning to Re- _ Caleb _ to stay put. “Let me just, grab this and I’ll be right back.” By the time he’s sat back down next to Caleb, Molly’s found the spot on the recording that starts their talk. “Just, watch, okay, and you’ll see. It’s not like I had time to doctor the video or anything.” 

He replays the tape, on the handheld he transferred it to, holding it out for Caleb to see. He doesn’t watch the tape, only Caleb, capturing at first his bland interest, then his first sharp breath, followed by a nervous inhale. His leg starts jittering again. Molly can feel it through the cushion. 

_ “He is hiding just beneath.”  _ Molly tries not to let the words distract him from watching Caleb, but it’s harder than he thought and he feels the cold tingle of shivers over his whole body. “ _ Tear off your skin and he’d be there.”  _ Not-Caleb’s voice says. “ _ Always there. Waiting, waiting to come out again from his walking grave. You smell of death. A dead man lives under your skin. Waiting. Don’t let your skeleton out.” _

In his mind’s eye, Molly recalls how Caleb moved, how he fell from the trance. He tries to keep the focus on the Caleb of now, instead, who looks about ready to faint. 

“I said those things.” It’s not a question, but a statement. 

“Yes. You did,” Molly confirms. “Sorry. I just...well it freaked me out, okay? I wasn’t expecting it. I’m the one who's supposed to give you your fortune. I’m, ah...guessing you didn’t know about this, er, ability?”

“Nein. I’m...now all I can think of is who all knows about it and never told me. If...if  _ he _ knows and what I told him I just...I am very nervous right now, that there are things I have said and done, and do not remember. And that may be very dangerous for me.” 

Molly laughs. “No shit. I, uh, actually get that. Like, a lot. I don’t go spewing prophecies everywhere like you, but heh, well, you heard it. I’m a dead man walking.” The confession tumbles from his lips haphazardly, and he avoids looking directly at Caleb. “I have a two year memory and everything from the person I was before is just-” He hold up his hands and makes an explosion movement. “Gone. Poof. Non-existent. So really, I get it. Who knows, anyone could just come up to me and start talking. A few have. Some more pleasant than others. And that’s- “he forces a grim smile, “-what Yasha is for. Among other things, of course.” He pauses, waiting for it to sink in.

“Nothing? You remember…nothing at all?”

“Nada.”

“Wow.” Caleb runs his hand through his hair. “That’s a lot.”

“Yup.”

“I, ah…thank you, for telling me.” There’s a waver in his voice that Molly recognizes. The kind when someone wants to say just how much what you’ve done really means, but knows that they can’t without sounding weird or dumb or wrong, so he just nods.

“Of course. I’m sorry for how I reacted,” he says, scratching the back of his neck. “I just wasn’t prepared to handle all that and then keep on like nothing had happened.” For once, Molly risks a look at Caleb. “Forgive me?” 

“Ja, I forgive you. And I thank you. Thank you for telling me. You did not have to, but you did and I’m grateful for it.” A ragged laugh is torn from his lips. “I don’t know what I will do now. I came here to learn if  _ I’m _ a dead man walking or not, and I met one instead. You have been kind, and I have been...rude.”

Molly shrugs. “You were desperate and scared. You don’t have to be anymore.”  _ What the  _ fuck _?  _ “You can stay here.”  _ What the everloving  _ fuck  _ is he saying?  _ “You’ll be safe here.” 

Caleb huffs and runs his hands over his face. “You don’t even know what I’m running from.  _ Who _ I’m running from.” 

_ In for a penny. _ “Doesn’t matter,” Molly says. “I like you. I have friends here, strong, powerful friends, and you are welcome to stay, if you like. You just…”  _ Look like you could use a friend. _

The look on Caleb’s face defies description. It’s sad and hopeful, terrified and excited, all at once. Suddenly, overwhelmingly, Molly has the urge to kiss him. He doesn’t. Instead, he stands and extends his hand. 

“What do you say?” 

Caleb watching him for a moment, and then reaches up, standing. “Alright, Mister Mollymauk.” 

“Ah, ah,” Molly chides playfully. “That ‘Molly’ to you. We’re friends now, afterall.” 

“Right,” Caleb says, half as in disbelief. “Friends.” 

It feels right, to offer, and even more right to hear Caleb say it back, so, Molly decides, he isn’t going to worry about it. There’ll be time enough for that later. 

 


End file.
